[Feature] replace hstack and vstack with stack

[HMO-SOUL]

Problem

greeting reactor team, I hope you are doing fine, I love this new project and I think it will be a very good replacement for xaml, especially for people like me who are tired of xaml limitation and boilerplates and bad debugging experience

in xaml the stack is one control with the ability to change Orientation

<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
</StackPanel>

in reactor we have

VStack() ;
HStack();

both feels redundant and can be replaced with one function, the horizontal and vertical stack code and functionalities all almost the same

Proposed solution

replace both functions with one stack function that use an enum to switch between horizontal and vertical mode

Stack(StackMode.Vertical
            TextBlock("I love WinUI")
            TextBox(opinion , setOpinion, placeholderText: "Your Opinion about WinUI? ")
                
        );

Alternatives considered

No response

Additional context

No response

Confirmation

• I have searched existing issues and specs for prior discussion of this idea.

[mdtauk]

Whilst I would agree having a single Stack control, that has an .orientation property would be the most familiar to people coming from XAML, SwiftUI and JetpackCompose both use the HStack and VStack convention, and it eliminates having to type out an orientation property for every stack you use.

On the converse side, it does make it harder to change the orientation of a containing panel at run time, if orientation is not a set-able value - but maybe I underestimate the simplicity of switching the container from HStack to VStack within Reactor?

[codemonkeychris]

Under the covers it is a StackPanel, so there is no overhead with the change. There is a StackElement which both HStack and VStack create, so it's absolutely trivial to add a Stack() factory method. Lets add it and see what people like... this is an experiment, after all :)

[codemonkeychris]

I am curious though, now that I think about it - Stack(StackMode.Vertical... is a lot more characters than VStack(...

What's the case that makes you want the more verbose version? Dynamic orientation change? Familiarity with XAML?

I ask, because of the shape... if we want familiarity with XAML, then maybe "StackPanel" would be better name, and we should go with Orientation to match 1:1 with XAML. If dynamic is the thing, then maybe we want something more like FlexPanel/FlexRow/FlexColumn triple - there we have the equivalent of the stack panel scenario, support dynamic, but have alias for the common cases.

Thoughts?

[eduardobragaxz]

Should Reactor concern itself with accommodating XAML developers? Given the point of Reactor I'd say no, even though in this case I personally prefer a single Stack object with an Orientation property. Do what makes more sense for those coming from "outside".

[mdtauk]

Should Reactor concern itself with accommodating XAML developers? Given the point of Reactor I'd say no, even though in this case I personally prefer a single Stack object with an Orientation property. Do what makes more sense for those coming from "outside".

It may not be about accomodating XAML, but because Reactor uses the same WinUI controls, and there are APIs and documentation, as well as WinUI control galleries - Reactor is not replacing XAML, it sits along side it, but uses the same controls.

[HMO-SOUL]

@codemonkeychris
thanks for answering, for me personally it is to keep it fimilar enough for xaml devs, ofc not exact copy of any available framework, just fimilar enough for all sides, keep in mind most of this library users will come from C#/Xaml background so fimilarity is needed (yes I know the target audience but we all know it is people who use C# who will use this library the most imo) , keep the name stack but make it more dynamic with an enum

we can make Vertical the default value and only call StackMode when we want Horizontal orientation this way it will be less verbose and fimilar for xaml devs, for react, compose and swiftui devs it is super easy to understand it, it is just an enum

and ofc for dynamic scenarios it will be super handy to just change a property instead of calling another function, the current stack functions are limited compare to the stackpanel object

[ReneeGA2020]

stack makes sense, but it does not have to replace hstack/vstack. They can coexist
'Agent friendly' will be a thing in the furture, It's easy to image the ai agents will try to write codes with hstack/vstack.

[dotMorten]

XAML dev here. I didn't like VStack/HStack at first either, but I've come to really appreciate it, and the more I think about it, it was super annoying in xaml always having to set the orientation when you wanted it horizontal, but at least you only needed to do it for the horizontal case. This suggestion would probably mean we'd always have to specify it?

[HMO-SOUL]

it is possible to have all the 3 stacks functions in case the community wanted it, still it is up to Chris to decide how to design reactor

[dotMorten]

it is up to Chris to decide how to design reactor

My impression is Chris wants this to be a community effort, so all this feedback is helpful. We as a community can provide our personal pros and cons to help drive those decisions.

[saint4eva]

Xaml behaviour and culture should not shape how Reactor should be. For years, many developers have been pleading with Microsoft for an alternative pattern or code-first focus other than xaml. So, bringing all the xaml verbosity to this effort does not make sense. Note, most of us don't want xaml - not that we hate it, but because we want code focused alternative. And moreover, this is about MVU pattern and not about xaml xvvm. So, concept of HStack and VStack is a welcome idea.

[bkaankose]

Another XAML dev here.

While Reactor is trying to help people coming from different tech stack to familiarize themselves with the WinUI world, let's not forget that it's partially serving as a layer on top of what WinUI offers under the hood with the controls set. Yes, one may not like XAML, has no knowledge about it and doesn't have to; yet from a product point of view I see Reactor as the fluent API layer for XAML. Which brings us here...

I am personally rooting for keeping all the naming conventions including controls. Single StackPanel with Orientation makes more sense to me but I've been doing all kinds of XAMLs and interact with all type of MS tech for years. It's my comfort zone. Question here is "What Reactor is trying to become?"

• If it tries to become a welcome door for people who are coming from different world to give Windows development a try, yes let's go with VStack-HStack.
• If the goal here is to enable Windows devs to have more control with C# with their UI; then let's stick with what we have and keep everything in pair.

Different XAML schemas exist for different frameworks under Microsoft UI foundation. MAUI switched to HStack-VStack eventually under the name of VerticalStacklayout - HorizontalStacklayout. We have StackPanel for UWP/WinUI/WPF. We had xaml-standard repo years ago to that I was hoping to bring some parity between platforms but that never happened.

Regardless of the XAML my point is consistency here.

Where does this product position itself?
Who is it aimed for?
Will it pay off for the effort that it aims for?

This goes beyond the topic of just naming conventions obviously; but I wanted to share as early as possible since I understand @codemonkeychris is looking for early adopters and feedback.

[codemonkeychris]

it is up to Chris to decide how to design reactor

My impression is Chris wants this to be a community effort, so all this feedback is helpful. We as a community can provide our personal pros and cons to help drive those decisions.

100%, this should be a community effort. In the end we will have to make a decision, but my hope is that most decisions are consensus

[codemonkeychris]

it is possible to have all the 3 stacks functions in case the community wanted it, still it is up to Chris to decide how to design reactor

Easy to have all 3